ABSTRACT
Multinational corporations (MNCs) play key roles in development processes. Yet the developmental role of MNCs plays a negligent role in the current international business (IB) literature, the literature that deals with MNCs. It was not always like this: the IB literature was born out of an engagement in societal and developmental agendas and was fueled by the pursuit of grand questions, such as why MNCs exist, how and why international activities of MNCs are expanding to more and more regions and sectors, and how MNC activity affects the welfare and development of societies. Since the early 2000s, however, it seems that IB has lost sight of the grand questions, instead immersing itself in increasingly specific, theoretically inspired enquiries. As a consequence, IB has lost relevance for practical development policy. This chapter documents this development in the IB literature based on an extensive survey of development-related work in three leading IB journals. The chapter calls for IB to rediscover its roots and relate to some of the grand questions of current development discourse. The chapter ends by outlining research agendas for future IB research on the development role of MNCs that take their point of departure from the comparative advantage of IB: its ability to understand MNCs qua being MNCs.
